Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1887-05-28
A Pspslar Fallacs.

It - usually held that women are the
weaker and more delicate sex, but TO
one who considers the modern fashion
of dress the proposition must appear at
least open to grave doubts. When on
bitterly cold day q man wrapped N .
voluminous and mighty ulster, with fur
cap drawn over his ears, and thick
gloves, gets into horse-car and sees
sitting opposite row of fragile locking
young ladies in close-fitting gowns, Of
which the sleeves are so tight as neces-
sarily to impede, if not wholly to stop
circulation. with hats whose only apti-
tude is that of height, perched jauntily
on the top of the head and no other
protection to their small hands than the
suggestion of kids, he must wonder
how his neighbors manage to get on
without freezing to death; and very
likely wonders why it has never oc-
Cured to anybody to send on Arctic
exploring expeditions women who are
20 evidently Indifferent to accidents Of
temperature rather than men who so
inwardly find it impossible to rise
above the weakness of yielding to the
theoretical connection. between vital
force and the dropping of the thermom-
eter. Similar reflections may very
likely arise in more festive scenes. A
man when he puts himself into the low
cut waistcoat prescribed by fashion for
evening wear, compromises with extra
Undertaking for the unaccustomed
thinhess of his dress. His sister, frail
and delicate creature, wanders about
drawing-rooms and unevenly heated
parlors with neck and arms bare, and
instead of dying of pneumonia before
morning, as in compliance with all
physiological laws she ought to do, suf-
fers no inconvenience whatever.
The truth is that give q man and q
woman equal health at the start, the
former barely manages to keep himself
alive and we'll by the most constant and
careful prudence, while the latter disre.
CARDS all hygienic rules with q boldness
and consistency beautiful to behold,
and comes out all the better for it. He
has to protect his feet from the snow in
his clumsy artics, beneath which he
wears the the thickest of leather; she
smilingly trips over the icy pavements
in thin boots through which every
SILVER of the wind must be plainly felt,
and she does it with perfect impunity.
He shuns draughts and sudden changes
Is the only way of battling the fiends of
rheumatism lying always in wait for
him; she dances until she is in glow
and saunter airily down some cool cor
ridor or out upon breezy piazza, and
no harm comes of it. He finds q
thoughtful prudence and regularity the
only means of persuading his stomach
to leave him in decent peace and tran
guilty; she eats at all sorts of odd and
unexpected hours, gorges herself on
unwholesome pastries and sweets, and
in green old age possesses still unim-
paired the digestive force of an ostrich.
The truth is that the idea of the
fragility of the sex is one of those pop
ular fallacies which, like the unluckli-
ness of spelling salt or the uncanniness
of Friday, should long ago have van
ished before the advance of civilization
and the general diffusion of knowledge,
but which persistently hold their own
in spite of everything. It is very like
the case of the old philosopher who
said: Everybody knows that the sun
rises in the east and sets in the west,
but it doesn't" Everybody knows that
women are more delicate and fragile
than men. but evidently all the same
they are not.-Bosto1a Courier.